Kozhikode, INDIA

Population: 600,000

Brief: Compassionate Kozhikode is located in Kozhikode, also known as Calicut. It is a city in Northern Kerala (India). Kozhikode was the first place in South India to start a palliative care service. The program started in 1993 and later developed further to have a regular outpatient clinic, inpatient unit, eight home care units, and a training centre. One of the eight home care units is a 24/7 home care program. Programs are supported by trained volunteers, the majority of whom are young people. These activities are coordinated by Institute of Palliative Medicine (www.instituteofpalliativemedicine.org) In 2015, the District Administration decided to build further activities on this social capital and floated a platform called ‘Compassionate Kozhikode’. This programme included other marginalised groups such as older people, differently abled, and people with mental illness, all under the umbrella of compassionate care through community participation. The program is three years old now. Regular community support is being provided to the inmates of the Mental Hospitals in the city. A project for community-based rehabilitation of people chronic psychiatric illness is in the preparatory phase. A major program to mainstream differently abled people is on. A platform called Campuses of Kozhikode has been set up to involve students in these activities. 68 academic institutions have already joined the program. 3000 students from these institutions are registered volunteers for the Compassionate Kozhikode program. Compassionate Kozhikode platform is managed by an informal committee led by the District Collector (Administrative Head of the District), Kozhikode.

Inverclyde, SCOTLAND, UK

Population: 80,000

Project Description: Compassionate Inverclyde is a local community development approach to building a compassionate community. Every aspect of Compassionate Inverclyde has been organically grown and developed following public conversations and engagement. The focus of development has been to enhance community capacity by developing and supporting social networks this includes peer and community support. Community engagement and development has been carried out across all age groups and organisations within Inverclyde involving schools, churches, workplaces, community centres, hospital, local hospice, youth groups and voluntary organisations. Compassionate Inverclyde is governed by a board made up with representatives from the local community organisations and is chaired by the Chief Officer of the local Health and Social Care Partnership.

Plymouth, England, UK

Population: 262,997

Project Description:St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth, has been engaging our communities to meet many of the objectives of the Compassionate City Charter. This has included creating compassionate communities for the homeless and prison populations, training volunteers and staff in these communities to support those at end of life or suffering with loss and bereavement. The Hospice has an education programme planned for schools which is based around the popular children’s character ‘Elma the Elephant’. There will be a trail of over 40 Elma sculptures (each painted by a different artist) placed across the city, to get families to talk about the elephant in the room. Remembering loved ones is important and the hospice holds a annual memory jar event on Plymouth Hoe that creates a lovely display of light at night which runs over 3 weeks.

The hospice is building death literacy and social capacity by creating 72 end of life champions in local care homes in Plymouth, giving these staff the skills and confidence to hold end of life conversations with residents and their families. We have launched the compassionate friends’ scheme, to develop local compassionate neighbourhood networks, who can offer practical and emotional support.

Plymouth has achieved much, but we can do more. The city is about to develop a city wide end of life network, in partnership with the local council and various other public bodies and local charities. Together, we aim to fulfil the charters objectives to ensure Plymouth does not shy away from the taboo subject of death, but talks openly about it, in order to create a city that is truly informed and compassionate towards those facing end of life, or experiencing loss and bereavement.

Cologne, GERMANY

Population: One million

Brief: Cologne has 1 Million inhabitants and a catchment area of about 6 Million inhabitants. Cologne has a long tradition of welcoming immigrants, and was the home of Germany´s first palliative care unit. In 2018 we plan to establish a participatory communal "Round Table" moderated by the City of Cologne and the Palliative and Hospice Network Cologne to discuss the current status and future development towards a "Caring Community Cologne" welcoming all relevant and interested stakeholders. In addition, we have applied for a major research grant. If granted (decision pending), this would allow us to base the discussion at the Round Table on research data from Cologne inhabitants and organisations, and would enable an external evaluation of our process.

All with You® Compassionate Cities in Spain and Latin America

New Health Foundation (NHF) is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to develop a new model of integrated health, social and community care by improving the effectiveness and efficiency of organisations and the well-being of people with advanced stage diseases, high dependency situations and at the end of life.

All with You® is a program founded in 2014 by NEW HEALTH FOUNDATION that promote the development and long-term success of compassionate communities and cities in Spain and Latin America, involving organisations and the general public in the design and execution of activities focused on raising awareness, training, research and implementation of care and support networks for people with advanced stage diseases or who are facing the end of life.

The main objective of the All with You®programme is for people who are living with advanced illness or facing end of life to be able to satisfy their primary needs through the social and health care provided by palliative and community care, together with their support networks. Within this programme a methodology has been created (All with You ® M=method) to facilitate organisations to develop compassionate communities and cities, supported by a skilled team and tools. This methodology has resulted in locally-based coverage of the main civic sectors outlined in the Compassionate City Charter.

Inspired by the compassionate communities' movement the New Health Foundation began to identify countries, organisations and different models of implementation of compassionate communities and cities at the end of life, with the main objective being to develop a method that could be extended to organisations, communities, municipalities, cities or countries.

Nine cities are now places where citizens have started to promote compassion related to the end of life. These nine cities (CLICK HERE) know the importance of the involvement of the community in the care and accompaniment of those who suffer from advance illnesses.

Jiujia Village, Shilin District, Taipei City, TAIWAN

Population: 6,000 people

The grand opening ceremony of Compassionate Community in Old Street, Shilin, Taipei City, Taiwan was held on April 6th, 2018. On the same day, Taipei City Mayor Dr. Wen-Je Ko, Commissioner of Civil Affairs, Commissioner of Health Department and Commissioner of Social Welfare signed to support our Compassionate Community. The Superintendent of Taipei City Hospital, Shilin District Executive, Chief of Jiujia Village and several councilors also signed to provide their support. Furthermore, April 6th was announced International Compassionate Community Day of Taipei City.

The Old Street Compassionate Community in Shilin District, Taipei was originally constructed by Mr. Yi-Sung Ho, the Chairman of Shilin Shennong Temple as well as Chief of Jiujia Village. The main idea was “Bringing back both Fudeyang Aqueduct and the affections in Shilin Old Street” in order to awake the compassion between residents in the community. The director of community palliative care is Dr. Sheng-Jean Huang, Superintendent of Taipei City Hospital, and the 4 core ideals including humanistic value, holistic care, community network and wisdom of life were designed by Mr. Chia-Jen Liu of Taipei City Hospital in order to provide care from womb to tomb.

The Compassionate Community in Old Street, Shilin was constructed under the direction of Professor Allan Kellehear and in the spirit of the Compassionate City Charter, we hope the power germinated from Old Street, Shilin can spread to make Taipei itself a compassionate city.

Vic, Barcelona, SPAIN

Population: 43,000

A Program of Compassionate City (CC) has been designed and developed in the City of Vic (43.964 habitants, Barcelona region, Spain), based on the the Compassionate City Charter and other public health literature and experiments, with the joint leadership of the City Council and the Chair of Palliative Care at the University of Vic, and as an expansion of a comprehensive and integrated system of palliative care. The Program started with an assessment of needs of the city as identified by 48 social organizations with a foundational workshop and a semi-structured survey. After this assessment, the mission, vision, values and aims were agreed. The main aims consisted in promoting changes in social and cultural attitudes toward the End of Life and providing integrated care for people with advanced chronic conditions and social needs such as loneliness, poverty, low access to services at home, or conflict. The selected slogan was “Living with meaning, dignity, and support the end of life”. The program for the first year has included 19 activities (cultural, training, informative, and mixed) and followed by 1.260 attendants, and the training activities were followed by 147 people. Local and regional sponsors are funding the initiative. After a year, a quantitative and qualitative evaluation was performed, showing high participation and satisfaction of the attendants and organizations. In the second year, the care for particular vulnerable people defined as targets (EoL and social factors described before) will start with volunteers with more organizations to join the project. The key identified factors for the initial success are: the strong joint leadership between social department of the Council and the Chair; the clear aims and targets; the high participation rates, the limited size of the geographical context, which allowed high participation and recognition, and the commitment to evaluate results.

New Westminster (Vancouver), British Columbia, CANADA

Population: ~70,000

New West Hospice Society, incorporated in 2016, began its development journey based on the tenets and philosophy described in Professor Allan Kellehear’s Compassionate City Charter. Initially, founding members met with local groups, individuals, and politicians to develop relationships. Then, two Community Conversations were organized to ask the community to identify their priorities for end of life and bereavement care.

Two signature projects were designed to complete the tasks described in the Charter – our Compassionate City Crew and our Festival of Loss and Healing. A Crew volunteer meets with someone referred needing support to stay at home at the end of life and helps to create a Circle of Support who will take on the needed tasks to make it happen. The Festival brings together community organizations and individuals who support those identified in the Charter tasks (people who have been incarcerated, refugees, spiritual care community, people with disabilities, etc.) to share their stories of losses who have experienced.

Our Vision statement from our Strategic Planning exercise: “We will work to build a community where death is no longer hidden or whispered about; where people know what to say and do to be supportive; where residents can die with dignity; and family and friends can grieve well.” The Mayor and City Council has approved a recommendation to work towards designating New Westminster as a Compassionate City. Together, we are working to meet that goal.

Compassionate Brock

Brock University (St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada)

Population: 20,000 (approximate as of 2016-2017)

Brief Overview:

Compassionate Brock (CB) – The world’s first post-secondary institution to bring the Public Health Palliative Care approach to life through the application of the Compassionate City Charter (3C). Evidence-based findings regarding active community engagement, positive socialization as well as short and long-term benefits of Compassionate Communities (CCs), were the basis of this Compassionate University initiative. CB laid its foundation between September 2017 to April 2018 through a top-down (i.e. senior administration and stakeholder engagement) and bottom-up (i.e. community engagement) approach to prevention and health promotion. Some of CB’s key stakeholders are: Pallium Canada, I-EQUIP Director, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences Dean, Vice President of Administration, Department of Health Sciences Chair, Center for Pedagogical Innovation, Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Department of Visual Arts, Hospice Niagara, Brock Recreation Services, Student Life and Community Experience, Faculty of Humanities, Brock University Student Union, Student Success Centre and Brock Library. Additionally, the following social sectors from the 3C have been at the forefront of CB so far: school, workplace and arts. With aims to increase education and awareness of caregiving, dying, death, bereavement and CCs, and to destigmatize death and dying CB achieved its short-term goals by April 2018. During this initiation phase, CB student co-leads, co-supervisors, stakeholders and community members together envisioned a Brock community in which all members—students, faculty, staff, volunteers—feel equipped to support one another during caregiving, dying and bereavement experiences within a death-positive socially supportive and compassionate environment.

The next student lead—and all future leads—will continue working on its long-term goals in the years to come.

Contact Person and Email: Madelyn Law mlaw@brocku.ca

Website address: Website and social media platforms coming soon.

Ottawa, Canada

Population: One million

Brief: Compassionate Ottawa (CO) was established in November 2016 following endorsement at a broad community meeting. CO is a community initiative and is not part of a larger organization. The oversight structure is simple with two co-chairs who are part of a five person Steering Committee. A larger group of volunteers, the Champions Circle, which now numbers 40, carries out the work of CO. The vision for Ottawa is: ‘A compassionate Ottawa supports and empowers individuals, their families, and their communities throughout life for dying and grieving well”. Our Mission has three components: Raising Awareness, Engaging and Empowering and Education and Training. We are following the Compassionate City Charter and our first three initiatives are working with schools, faith communities and workplaces. A forth initiative is advance care planning.